Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-06
Source: The Conversation – France in French (3)– By Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Nottingham Trent University
In 1976,The Men of the President, by Alan J. Pakula, depicted an ideal type of journalistic work: thorough and long-term investigation, objective reporting of facts, refusal to impose a point of view on readers. The context was very different from today, newspapers such as theWashington Postbeing at the time institutions unanimously respected. Fifty years later, the trust of the general public in the press has largely eroded, due to a combination of factors, foremost among them the pursuit of profit and clicks…
The Men of the President, a great classic of American cinema, was released fifty years ago, in April 1976 in the United States.
The film, led by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, is an adaptation of the eponymous best-seller by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, published two years earlier (in French,The President’s Madmen), detailing the long investigation by the two journalists of theWashington Poston theWatergate scandal, which has deeply and enduringly shaken the Americans’ trust in their government.
Let’s recall the context: on June 17, 1972, men commissioned by the Committee to Re-elect the Republican President Richard Nixon (first elected in 1968, he was going to be re-elected a few months later, in November 1972) were caught breaking into the national headquarters of the Democratic Party, located in the Watergate building in Washington. The investigation would lead to the president’s resignation in 1974 and the imprisonment of several members of his administration.
When America still trusted the media
Some phrases used in the book and then in the film have entered common language: “Deep Throat” (literally “Deep Throat”) to refer to secret sources; the expression “Follow the money”; and, of course, the addition of the suffix-gateAt the end of a word to designate a scandal.
The Manchurian Candidateremains undoubtedly the most famous film ever devoted to journalism, and has significantly shaped the perception of the profession by the general public.
Seeing it again today, we discover an America where the media enjoyed genuine trust. At the time, a large majority of Americans believed that if a piece of information was published by theWashington Postor theNew York Times, is that it was truthful. The contrast is striking with the current situation, when distrust towards the mediahas never been so greatin the United States.
If Woodward and Bernstein succeeded in completing their investigation, it is also because they benefited from a luxury that has now disappeared: the pace of news was much slower then than it is today. Newspapers were printed only once or twice a day – allowing journalists precious time to verify their sources, consult archives, and discuss their work with their colleagues.
And, above all, if they had doubts about an article they were writing, it was easier for them to set it aside and come back to it the next day. The current news cycle — which operates 24 hours a day — makes this much more difficult: speed takes precedence over accuracy, and the frantic race to be the first to publishthescoop can encourage publishing articles before they are fully developed.
The economic model is no longer the same either. Many local newspapers belonged to families established in their cities for several generations and often heavily involved in the life of their community in the broad sense. In 1974, theWashington Postwas at its headKatherine Graham, whose father, Eugene Meyer, had bought the newspaper in 1933 and had run it until 1946, when he passed the reins to his daughter’s husband, Philip Graham; Katherine took over the role after Philip’s death in 1963.
Of course, there were already press magnates such as William Randolph Hearst, whose life inspiredCitizen Kane(1946), by Orson Welles. But even the most powerful bosses operated in an ecosystem where credibility was absolutely essential for a newspaper’s success. Revenue came from sales and advertising, which gave journalists the necessary time to work thoroughly on a given article.
Today, however, the emphasis is placed above all on the “click race,” and we see an increase in articles composed of lists orequipped with sensational titles, designed to generate the greatest possible number of shares on social networks.
How the press shaped the priorities of public opinion
In the early 1970s, the press participated just as much – if not more – than television in defining the country’s priorities. Commentators and star columnists, such asWalter Winchell, were already celebrities, but due to the success of theMen of the president, investigative journalists have in turn come fully into the spotlight. This new dynamic had a downside: it may have encouraged an approach to reporting more focused on the ego of the authors, where the story of the journalist-hero took precedence over the investigation.
Moreover, at the time, the media focused much more on reporting the news than on creating it. Today, many media platforms explicitly claiming investigative journalismconsider that their role is to define the priorities of the general public. Traditional media denounce in this regard an invasive ideological activism.
The Men of the Presidentseems to adopt the viewpoint that the media’s mission is to report the facts, leaving it to the general public to decide how they should be interpreted. However, the film itself already contradicts this position. Woodward and Bernstein did not just report the facts: they led the debate. Fifty years later, the question of whether the press should be a mirror held up to power or a force that actively shapes political action remains relevant.
“Network”, contemporary and prescient of “The Men of the President”
1976 also saw the release ofNetwork. Takeover of television, which depicted the story of a presenter (played by Peter Finch) who suffers a nervous breakdown live on air, becoming then “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” urging his audience to shout out the window: “I’m angry and I can’t take it anymore!”
In the film, the television network belongs to a conglomerate with vast interests. Woodward and Bernstein are professionals who do what the job requires; they work without animosity, with the sole aim of revealing the truth about the Watergate conspiracy, and not to bring down Nixon;Network, on the other hand, depicts a world where profit crushes everything, where the media and politicians are in a constant state of war — and where journalists seek less to inform than to stoke the anger of the general public.
Fifty years later, the question is not which film was right (everything suggests that it isNetwork). It is rather about knowing whether the celebrated worldThe Men of the Presidentwas already disappearing, even as the public and critics were praising it.
Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliations than his research body.
–ref. “All the President’s Men”: monument to an era when the general public trusted the press –https://theconversation.com/les-hommes-du-president-monument-a-une-epoque-ou-le-grand-public-avait-confiance-dans-la-presse-280962